Tremont Waters gets a call-up

So far the G-League life has provided Tremont Waters with the perfect launching pad.

Prior to being called down from Maine for Monday’s game against Sacramento to fill Kemba Walker’s roster spot, the rookie point guard had averaged 20.1 points and 7.8 assists over five games for the Red Claws.

Waters’ reward was two-fold — an announcement that he was G-League player of the week after averaging 24 points, 8.1 assists and two steals in two games last week, and the very real chance that the Celtics would use him in some short-term opportunities.

“We consider everything. I would not be scared to play him. He’s a heck of a player,” said Brad Stevens.

Waters has shown that much already in a short amount of time.

“It’s been fun. Definitely a great chance to learn,” he said. “Just go out there and play my game, do what I can do and just help the other guys get better as they help me get better. And we just continue to improve overall. … In life I’ve learned that everything isn’t going to go your way. So you just have to take some things on the chin, just keep moving forward and just have a growth mindset. Don’t get stagnant.

“It’s definitely been helping me because I’m just trying to take it one day at a time like I always say,” said Waters. “And being able to do that in the G-League, at practice, play the game, play the same amount of minutes every game and just work on doing the same things over and over is definitely helping me.”

Waters received a text from Celtics assistant Kara Lawson on Sunday, the day after Walker sprained his neck running head-first into Semi Ojeleye’s chest, and has been on hand ever since.

“I saw it, I think it was a replay because we had just gotten back from our game,” said Waters. “So I walked in, turned my iPad on and I saw his head going into Semi’s chest. And it didn’t look good. I actually had an injury like that in football when I was younger. I had a stinger on my neck so it didn’t feel good. So watching that kind of brought back those memories.

“I would say it’s just like a human thing,” he said. “If you’re a fan, you automatically want to know what’s going on and see if he’s all right and kind of just putting prayers up so you can hope for a speedy recovery and hope it’s nothing serious. So I was just hoping for the same thing.”

Kanter starts

Daniel Theis missed Monday’s game with an illness, leading to Enes Kanter’s first start since opening night. Stevens said that calling up Tacko Fall wasn’t logistically possible.

“The Theis thing, probably day to day,” said Stevens. “He did not feel good, so obviously he’ll be back soon. We didn’t have time to bring Tacko up. They were flying into Toronto, Memphis to play tomorrow. We already had Tremont here yesterday in anticipation that Kemba would be a last-minute decision.”

Photo fun

The Red Claws, famously by now, stood the 7-foot-6 Fall next to the 5-foot-10 Waters in a recreation of a legendary publicity photo once taken of 7-foot-7 Manute Bol and 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues.

Though not even close to Bogues’ short stature, Waters had no problem taking part in the publicity shoot.

“Tacko said he wanted to do it, so I just kind of went along with it,” said Waters. “Being a team player, that’s what you do. Definitely fun.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35wN0bl